Welcome. This site documents my quest to understand the 'what', 'why' and 'how' of human behavior. What makes people who they are? How can we be so similar, yet profoundly different? How do our genes interact with our experiences and enviroment to make us all who we are? And how is this whole process reflected in the physiology of our brain?

To examine this interaction, I approach the investigation of nature and nurture through the perspective of social neuroscience, a sub-discipline of the neurosciences, which suggests unitying the tools and theories from the biological and social sciences to develop a more comprehensive theory of human nature. The ways in which genetic and environmental factors interact within the brain to support our elaborated capacities to think, love and create.

The most difficult and exciting problem of the neurosciences is the nature of consciousness in terms of the physiology of the brain. If we are to truly understand consciousness, I fundamentally believe that we must not be solely investigating the cellular and molecular physiology of the brain but ought to also look outside of the brain, to the social and cultural forces which shape and maintain it across the human lifespan.

A side from such breakthroughs, what I am most excited about is the potential this knowledge will have in the public sphere. Our world is truly a global community. One comprised of sovereign nations, cultures and social individuals, each with a vast history, local dialect and social customs that develop conscious thought and guide a human way of life. However, it is not merely humanity, but all life on Earth, which depends on a future of dynamic, peaceful and productive intercourse and exchange between human diversity.

Taken together, these research themes reflect my ultimate desire to investigate the ways in which each project can be synthesized and shared in order to answer some of the most important questions regarding brain evolution, consciousness and human nature.